Vol. 3_ Number 2 (Spring 2005) - Cover art by Teresa Tunaley

Volume 3 Number 2

Spring 2005

"Tranquil Day" cover by
Teresa Tunaley

Teresa has also provided the illustrations for Swans in Flight and for Echo in the current issue. We recently congratulated Teresa for winning Ralan's 2004 Grabber Contest for an illustration.

Largest Issue (to-date) - a literature of mythic proportions. Three poems by Mary Pat Mann. Homer's Giants, a tempest, a titan and Frailty, beauty and toxins, envy and justice and revenge, graveyards and ritual killing. 13 works.

Mythos of Spring

There is not only one myth of Spring. The season that takes flight from the thaw hatches as many stories as there are new beginnings, as many myths as there are cycles of years. Still, within these tales is a constant. What is born among us gave birth to the world. What was slain in Winter is now food. What had fallen asleep is now awakened, reborn, and in turn renews creation. Life pulses with opportunity, with hope, with new season. This issue, we bring you fourteen new stories and poems. It is our hope that you will find within them something new and something familiar -- in short, a literature of mythic proportions. So, let us bring in the Spring . . .

Poetry

Special Feature

by Mary Pat Mann

This trio of poems by MP Mann is so inspiring that we decided to publish them all in one issue. Trees in Hiding challenges us to consider, whether as poetic device or consensual reality, the sentience of our surroundings. Swans in Flight asks whether our relationships can be at once fulfilling and constraining. Cranes is a treatment of the Celtic tradition of the Crane Bag, and illustrates how the treasures - the graal - in our lives, can pass by unseen. Mary is the editor of From the Oak Grove: An Anthology.

Homer's Giants

by Eric Marin

Ever grieved for a character you'd come to love, in a book or film? Did you ever feel as though the artist were wrong to slay him so callously? What monstrous destruction a writer can hurl against our hearts, once we've opened them and allowed another soul to dwell within! Not to allow it means disengaging from art, refusing to let it affect us. Rather than turn away, perhaps it is better to eulogize that love.

Cock and Bull

by Elizabeth Barrette

All around us, beauty is on sale, but what is the mannequins' ultimate price? Who is it we will ultimately satisfy by purchasing a similar image? Barrette's story poem offers an eerie critique. Incidentally, another poem by the author, "The Poltergeist of Polaris" has been nominated for the 2005 Rhysling Award and will be reprinted in the 2005 Rhysling Anthology: The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Poems of 2004. Congratulations, Elizabeth.

Echo

by John Grey

How often do we flirt with death, taking in our various toxins, the venom of our manufactures and distillations? If we could look through the lens of these creations, look back at ourselves, what might we see?

Alcoholic

by Daniel James Wood

It is a struggle to see the humanity in our icons. How do we take in the simultaneity of the human and the ethereal? The mind is in constant motion from the one to the other. In order to focus, it is sometimes necessary to underscore the frailty of manhood, the weakness of flesh, precisely in order to see beyond it. In this incarnational poem, the writer does just that.

Graveyards

by Julian Lamarck

What's it like to feel disconnected, even in a crowd? Perhaps, especially there. In art, our culture glorifies the 'one man who stands alone' and shudders at the 'one man acting alone'. Where is the line between maverick hero on the one hand, and outcast, alienated, lone gunman, rogue on the other? Maybe it's whether his goals are aligned with our own. We really never know who he is until it's too late. This loner, hero or villain . . . do you really want to be him, or does he really want to be you?

Serial: Mosaic Soliloquies #6

by Joseph P. Farrell

In the sixth of the series, Vardas plots, devising his strategy for regaining power and for . . . revenge? Among other things, in this piece, the author suggests a source for the now infamous forgery of The Donation of Constantine, used for some 600 years to demonstrate papal supremacy. It is clear that, throughout the serial, the writer is offering in fictional form a historical analysis not only outside of the mainstream, but one that is a critique of mainstream assumptions.

Fiction

Tempest Inamorato

by T.J. Starbuck

Storms are not unusual phenomena for Spring. We understand their patterns, their composition, and something of their power. The fact that what we don't know about storms surpasses what we do know is illustrated by their constant ability to surprise us. As with the tempest in this short story, not everything registers on the Doppler radar.

The Strong Man

by Anne Marie Jackson

Each of us carries a burden so unique as to be a world unto itself. We are laden with the aspirations, beliefs, and loyalties that define us as potential titans. In brief, we carry our hopes on our backs. Isn't it odd how such uniquely personal trajectories are so easily interrupted by such common distractions?

Wishing

by T. R. Nunes

Envy doesn't always turn us green. Sometimes it receives only passing thought. Whenever we wish, however casually and secretly, that another will have less and ourselves more, that others reach only what does not exceed our own accomplishments, we take responsibility for their suffering. Ethically, we say an inner 'yes' to their loss. What would it look like if the ethical implications became historical ones? Perhaps such greed is the root of evil, and evil, as T.R. Nunes articulates in this story, is always personal.

Crow Justice

by Eric Marin

Winking at corruption? Looking the other way, now and then? Even if you never get caught or called on it, and even if you sleep soundly, you're already less than you were. If you were to imagine this transformation, what would you become? Marin is a versatile talent (see also his poem in the current issue).

Final Words

Remember that our archives are chock full of additional stories, poems, and columns to fascinate, horrify, and delight. Feel free to help yourself to a read. -- Editor-in-Chief, Asher Black.

For broken links or other errors, contact Asher Black via his website.